Opposition Defends Indo-Chinese Rebels

(June 1930)

The International Left Communist Opposition has extended its struggle to one more sector. This is in connection with the revolutionary movement in Indo-China against the sanguinary acts of repression of French Imperialism.

The official Communist Party in France is non-existent so far as Indo-China is concerned where the proletariat is being ferociously exploited and where imperialism maintains its police dictatorship over the native proletarian population by fire and sword, torture and death. This atrocious misery has already evoked movements of spontaneous revolt that the young native bourgeoisie more or less independent of French capital, has sought to direct to its own ends. In consequence of the revolts of Yen Bay, of Vinh, etc., 39 Indo-Chinese revolutionaries have been sentenced to death and four of these have already been executed. The Criminal Commission of Phu Tho is about to condemn ten other revolutionaries to death, one to life long imprisonment, twenty-six to hard labor for the rest of their lives, thirty-eight to deportation, etc.

The Indo-Chinese workers in France and the French proletarians have under the leadership of the Communist League of France (Opposition) embarked on an energetic protest action to prevent these sentences from being carried out any further and this campaign must strike an echo in the hearts of the workers of all countries.

In front of the Elysée in Paris a strong demonstration took place on the call of the Communist League following which several comrades were imprisoned. Despite all the attention this demonstration stirred up in the bourgeois press, despite the fury of the attack of the government against the Left Opposition, the leadership of the French Communist Party and the Humanité have MAINTAINED COMPLETE SILENCE because our Indo-Chinese comrades fought under the flag of the Communist League (Opposition). It was only after direct protests and by way of leaflets and public notices that the Humanité finally made up its mind to, defend our Indo-Chinese comrades.

But the opportunist leadership of the Party and the Humanité, even while defending our comrades, betrayed them. In the articles of the Humanité they were represented as being the adherents of the official policies of the Communist Party and the Stalinist policy in the colonies for “the right of self-determination for their complete independence” (Humanité, May 28th, 1930). Nothing could be more false.

The Indo-Chinese comrades have condemned the Stalinist colonial policy applied by the Comintern regime throughout the world and particularly in Asia. The Indo-Chinese comrades are an integral part of the International Opposition.

Together with the Left Opposition, the Indo-Chinese comrades are not satisfied to fight for “self-determination up to complete independence” after the fashion of Chiang Kai-Shek but call for the formation of an independent revolutionary party of the working class to wage the struggle for the social revolution against both French imperialism and native bourgeois exploitation equally and in closest contact with the French working class. “Proletarians of all countries, unite” must become more than a mere slogan. It must be carried into life.